The Live Nation antitrust trial opens today, and the stakes for the music industry are enormous — a possible breakup of the company that has dominated live entertainment for 16 years (The New York Times). It’s one of several stories today about who gets to control the cultural machinery. David Ellison’s Paramount just pulled off the Warner acquisition — a company five times its size — leaving Hollywood stunned (The Wall Street Journal). And the AI-and-data angle of that deal is the part worth watching closely (NPR).
New York has a new culture commissioner — Diya Vij, a curator with deep roots at Creative Time and the High Line, taking over at a tense economic moment (Hyperallergic). In Berlin, the Berlinale’s troubles are raising a harder question: whether Germany’s approach to permissible speech has made it impossible to run major cultural events there (The New York Times). And the Writers Guild Awards have been cancelled outright, with 115 WGA staffers still on strike (The Wrap).
All of our stories below.
